iview

Sophie Cadieux, who bears some resemblance to Elisabeth Moss in other stills

Thanks to the Emerging Writers Festival newsletter, I learned that ACMI is hosting Series Mania Melbourne | A Free Festival of New TV this weekend. It started today (Thursday), and ACMI is hosting a series of free screenings for upcoming shows, as well as a keynote talk with Vince Gilligan, which had sold out by the time I’d learned that the festival was even on.

A note about the screenings: You can make some educated guesses (and I have a bunch of press releases and a giant spreadsheet), but it’s not clear. Also before you get too excited, Get Krack!nby Kates McLennan and McCarthy of The Katering Show is also sold out. It will be on ABC later this year.

I’d never heard of Series Mania, but it’s a French festival that aims to be television’s answer to Cannes. It began in Paris, and is moving to Lille next year. Series Mania has been brought to Melbourne by Forum des Images, and is sponsored by ACMI and film Victoria, as reported by Variety. It’s the first time Series Mania has been to another country, and I hope it continues to both expand and return to Melbourne.

It’s a good week for streaming television. Dear White People is already on my hypothetical “Best of 2017” list. I saw the whole season on screener, and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen this year. It’s a show I wanted to review, but didn’t know how to, because as this A.V. Club headline says,

The excellent Dear White People doesn’t care about white people.

I am a white person, so I can’t claim to know anything about what this show gets right and wrong, because I don’t have that experience. The kneejerk reaction people have had about the title is exactly why it’s called Dear White People. What this show does so well is explore the different perspectives of students at Winchester. Do you work within the system like Troy and Coco, or do you rally against it like Sam and Reggie? Or do you try to expose the system by being a journalist like Lionel? A social movement isn’t a homogenous group of people with the same opinion, and Dear White People shows us that everyone has their reasons for the way they act.

Mo Ryan’s review at Variety touched on how the humour worked even when other parts of the show didn’t, and there are two specific jokes that stuck out at me: the first was a comment about wine, and the other one was about Drake’s career. I know very little about Drake other than that I don’t like “Hotline Bling,” but I was in the car the other day listening to the radio and thought “Who was it who said that thing about Drake?” before remembering it was a joke on Dear White People. Mo’s review also mentioned some characters who were overlooked, namely Lionel and Joelle. For reasons I watched episode 2 first, which was a Lionel episode, and he immediately became my favourite character. Joelle was the most prominent character who didn’t get any point of view episodes this season, and that needs to change when it’s renewed.

As for everything else: The Games is on iView, and I started watching an episode last night when I was writing the guide, because I couldn’t remember what my favourite episode was called. It’s titled “A Management Course,” and John, Gina and Brian have to go on a team building retreat. John and Gina think it’s pointless, but Brian seems to enjoy it. American Gods starts Monday on Amazon Prime, and I decided to put Eagle Vs Shark in because it was directed by Taika Waititi. Unfortunately there’s still no news about when The Handmaid’s Tale will be coming to Australia, but it had better be soon.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is coming to Netflix ANZ. ABOUT TIME. Hi Netflix, it deserves better than to be dropped on New Year’s Eve. On the other hand, it’s a show about a woman who is trying to make a change in her life and is just weird enough to be great New Year’s Day viewing. Plus the songs are great, and I’m working on a piece about them just now. Sherlock is back on Monday too, so it will be the only thing the internet talks about for a few weeks. It’s still a good show, but I don’t like it as much as I used to. In short: I am very much a Sherlock hipster.

I decided to make this week’s streaming guide short, so the one thing I didn’t end up highlighting that I might have otherwise is the first season of The Shannara Chronicles which drops on Netflix January 5. I’ve definitely seen one episode, possibly two. They were a bit rough, and I lost track after that, but I’m interested to see how the first season ended. Netflix is also fast-tracking the second season of Shadowhunters, which starts January 3. The way time zones work means that these dates for Shadowhunters and Sherlock are a day later than in their original broadcast countries – I watch Game of Thrones on a Monday morning.

I’d never heard of Ivan Aristeguieta until earlier this year, when he was featured on the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala. The below bit about Bunnings sausage sizzles is hilarious, and spot on. I expect that Lost in Pronunciation will have similar insights into Australian culture, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Tis the season for Christmas specials! Stan has a whole page of Christmas themed content, including one of my favourites, Yogi Bear’s First Christmas. I don’t remember much about it, I just know we used to watch it every year on Christmas Day when I was younger, probably so my parents could get everything ready for lunch and keep us out of the way. Last year they had some Peanuts specials which I watched with my parents. It was a lot of fun. Over on Netflix, the Sense8 Christmas Special is dropping later today, and the Doctor Who special will be available from 6am Boxing Day on iview. I will not be awake at 6 to watch Doctor Who.

In non-Christmas related content, Stan has the second season of Penny Dreadful, and one of my favourite films of last year, Sleeping With Other People. iView is dropping two six-episode webseries on Boxing Day, and there’s another one coming on New Year’s Day.

As for next year: I was putting things into my January spreadsheet yesterday, and there are some good things coming! I am rereading the first four books in A Series of Unfortunate Events in preparation for the show, as well as rewatching the film. There’s a feature I’d like to put together, and we’ll see how it works out. For now I’ve got my hands full with Terrace House and Fringe (Shipping update: Peter and Olivia still haven’t kissed, and it probably won’t happen for a while now that Peter knows he’s from Earth-2).

I responded that it’s a comedy show that’s sort of about food, and that’s all you really need to know about The Katering Show, except for the fact that it’s great. If you can give me a one sentence description of The Katering Show that’s better than that, I’ll be very grateful. The Katering Show follows comedians Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney. McLennan is an ‘intolerable foodie’ and McCartney is intolerant of many foods, and she doesn’t care about cooking. At all. Most of the show’s humour is derived from the odd couple chemistry between the two, and its great. In Australia, you can watch both seasons of The Katering Show on iview, and if you’re not Australian, the first season is on YouTube, as is this ‘apology video’ regarding the geoblock on season two.

I’m now writing streaming guides for what’s new on Australian television each week. I highlight 3-4 shows, and everything else is listed below. Fun times ahead! Also: next week is a really good one with the second seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Katering Show, and if you’re more in the mood to bawl your eyes out, go and watch Inside Out on Netflix.